"yourlifeismine" - читать интересную книгу автора (Barton Gary)

Cops! The place was lousy with them! And there was lots of gunfire. And people yelling and women
screaming.

I felt a slug crease my side and it burned like hell, and the blood started to run, warm
and sticky, down my leg. But I kept going, blind with fright, and everything was a gray haze,
with people moving crazily and yelling, and the sharp crack of police pistols.

Somehow, I managed to reach the subway entrance. There was a cop standing there, and there
were so many people crowding around now that I guess he didn't realize that I was one of the
crooks until it was too late.

I hated to do it, but it was my life, too, wasn't it? I didn't really think about it one
way or another, but fleetingly, I was thinking: You've already burned down one back there in
the bank. Don't let this one stop you, now.

I was all the way down the subway stairs when I heard his body fall. He never made a sound,
and he rolled behind me down the steps.

Luckily, a train was just pulling out. I hurdled the turnstiles and made it, rode to the
next stop and went into the men's washroom, I stayed there about five minutes, cleaned up, then
went out and on up to the street. I rode downtown in a cab.

The next day, it was spread all over the papers. Three killed, two got away. One got away
with a bag containing a little cash and thirty thousand dollars in negotiable bonds--and that
was Nickie Morielli. Even I didn't know where he hid out with that loot.

I stayed in my hide-out for five days, and had a kid bring me the papers, every edition, and
food and cigarettes. And so I read how you got Nickie Morielli.

He was fool enough to leave his hide-out, and the cops picked him up. He almost got away
from you then, too. A running gun fight, wasn't it?

Anyway, I remember reading that he put a slug in one detective's knee and stopped another,
before one of you put two bullets in his head. You got Nickie Morielli, but you never did get
the bonds.

So that's why you were on the case, Johnnie Dale. You wanted to find out where Nickie had
cached that loot. And that's why I was on the case. I wanted to find out, too. You were going
to lead me to it. When you found it, I'd be there!

You were making the rounds, picking up the pieces. All the little things that seemed so
insignificant. A stoolie here who might have heard something, a lead there that couldn't be
overlooked, and all those little things in between that always came close, but didn't quite
add up.

Most of the times, I could have told you what was good and what wasn't. But I couldn't. I
couldn't let you know. And the days were moving into weeks, and the weeks into months.

And all this time I was behind you, like a shadow, like a ghost, haunting you, living your
life, getting more desperate each day; cheering you when the trail looked hot, and cursing and